Thoughts
I think if I taught a programming class, I'd split it in half. First half would be "small-scale programming", leet-code type programs.
Everything in a single file. Introduce algorithms, introduce most programming concepts, functions, recursion, variables, arrays, etc. I think people scoff at this, and focus on "real code" but I suspect this is actually a great way to learn the programming language concepts.
Second half of the class would be "project programming", actually organizing and using the tools to build cool things. Maybe be a mistake.